My therapist and I worked on this A LOT as there was so much clutter and really, just trash everywhere, it looked like a hoarders home. I had dishes piled up sky high even though I have a dishwasher. I had boxes and crap piled up on one of my couches so that there was only one place to sit. My walk in closet was piled from front to back and higher then I stood. It wasn't because I was a hoarder but I think it reflected my depression. I had 4 roach nests in here, the biggest in my kitchen where I had left a raised dog bowl thing (one of those where you were supposed to put the dog food inside the plastic tub and it had a top where the bowls sat). It was like an inch too tall so I couldn't use it and so I put it aside in the kitchen and piled shit on top of it and it got really nasty. Like hundreds of roaches, babies, and eggs lived behind it. I had boxes that food came in like cereal boxes piled over all my counters and on my stove all the way up to the stove hood. Both of my cats stopped using the litter box when they got older and they peed all over the bedroom carpet. I also had trouble cleaning out the cat box and apparently didn't have the care to keep up with it so the entire thing became one big solid brick. Which is partly why the litter box stopped being used, I think.
I'm so embarrassed now how bad it got. And I defentantly avoided cleaning. It was way too overwhelming so this was a topic in therapy a lot. My therapist helped me focus on just one thing. Like, just focus on the stuff on the couch. Or just focus on the dishes. And I even had to go smaller then that because it was still too much. So we had to break it down to just clean out one box. Just do 3 dishes. I have a dishwasher so just fill that once. And then don't do anymore. It worked and worked well. What I found is if I put on some music, as I started to go, I got into a groove and did way more then I originally even thought I could. I threw out most stuff. But it took a while. I used my spare room to put things I wanted to keep but couldn't put away yet as the place it was to go needed to be cleaned and trash needed to be thrown away so I would just throw things in that room, not caring how as I would organize it as I got areas clean. Now the dishes are never in the sink. I always put away dishes that are clean from the dishwasher right away and put dirty ones in there as I go. The living room is cleaned and kept clean. I then tackled my walk in closet as I was working from home. A little at a time. A box at a time. Then I would tackle a box at a time of the stuff in the guest room. Now both are 100% clean and very organized and I do a good job of keeping it that way. It is crazy to see my house now and remember how it was.
So, to tackle house cleaning is to focus on one small bit at a time to stop from being overwhelmed. It doesn't all need to be cleaned this second, you know? It's not a race but a slow marathon. It took me around a year to clean the entire house. Hundreds of bags of trash. Ok, maybe hyperbolic but it was a ton. It is ok to clean one tiny area at a time. Or just clean out only this one box. Or only do these few dishes. Or just sweep this one small area. Today I often can't vacuum, sweep, and mop. It's only one of those that I can do, due to pain. So, I pick one, and do that one. On another day I will do the other. And on another day, another. And its not often days close together. If I see an area that needs sweeping badly, I will take a few minutes and only sweep that one small area. I actually wrote out what I was doing as I was doing it in my diary. Its many pages back but it will give you an idea of what I mean. Put on some good motivating music and just focus on one small thing at a time.
I hope that helped some. I feel you on this, a lot. This was me like a year or so ago. Unable to even move around my house without going around stuff or stepping over stuff and now with a cleaned house. I still plan on getting rid of furniture, I just can't drag a full sized couch and a king sized bed out of the apartment on my own so will need to figure out someone that can help me. But I am still not done. But super proud of having a clean house now. I think that feeling proud helps motivate you too.
